System being designed to help hospitals figure out if patients will pay

The health industry is creating the medFICO score to judge patient's ability to pay their hospital bill. The medFICO score could debut as early as this summer in some hospitals. It is already being questioned by consumer advocacy groups that fear it will be checked before patients are treated.

After Mark Logsdon tore a ligament in his knee skiing at Lake Tahoe in March, he returned home to suburban Sacramento and had an MRI scan at Sutter Davis Hospital. Sutter’s price for the knee scan was...

It's no surprise that the struggling economy has made it harder for hospitals to collect money from patients who have lost their jobs - and their health insurance. But a local hospital group says the...